Mind Mapping made easy

So, you know those stories of the business plan written on a napkin or beer mat? Or those guys with the big glass screen drawing up their plan to take over the whatsit market? Well, if you ever felt like you aren’t that cool and that you can’t draw a square never mind a process flow, have I found the site for you. Check out www.exploratree.org.uk

Here you will find easy to use (and understand) tools or frameworks for thinking through an issue and considering different aspects or perspectives.  Choose from a set of templates to analyse or appraise anything in a structured way, from SWOT analysis to a Futures Wheel that will help you think through the consequences and knock-on effects of a problem. 

You can also create your own mind map once you get the hang of things and then you can save them, share them and edit them. Then you can present your ideas, add them as project documentation, send to a group or syndicate for input and comment plus a host of other great features.  And best of all, it’s FREE!  All you have to do is register and have Flash on your machine and away you go! Go on Exploratree.

Oh, and if you’re Welsh, there’s a bunch of maps just for you. Detholiad o drefnwyr meddwl yn Gymraeg.

http://www.exploratree.org.uk

Finally, Adobe has assisted Apple by means of providing a viable platform (namely their Flash CS5) to convert software written in Flash into standalone iPhone apps.Developers will soon be able to submit their creations to Apple and if approved  sell it through the iTunes App Store!

The reason why this is such awesome news, is that up until now Flash programmers were hard-pressed to make money from their work. And that’s where the App Store might help. Now that they have the ability to program, convert and port these creations to be sold to iTunes, they too can skim some cream off the fresh milky Internet.

Reference:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/10/flash-economy/

The site features an intuitive navigation (based on a paradigm pioneered by www.schematic.com) that allows a user to ‘zoom out’ and get a bird’s eye view of the entire site by simply dragging the ‘website’ around on the page. With a simple click of a button the user can easily view a ‘content block’ with ease and intelligent in-situ navigation allows a user to effortlessly navigate the content of the specified section, always with the option to return to the ‘zoomed out’ view.

Being integrated with Microsoft Office Share Point Server allows Absa a central location of content management ensuring updated content is deployed on both the flash and HTML version of the site reducing time for any maintenance items.

View our latest creation at www.absacapital.com

Screencasts are useful in guiding visitors through your website, recommending development changes in a planning process to web developers or perhaps a good screencast will make your teaching task that much easier when you need to show your granny, for the fifth time, how to use online chat.

The ScreenToaster solution (compatible with Windows, Mac OS and Linux) will enable you create video files showcasing your screen activity. No software downloads, No fees, all you need is a web browser. Once your video is ready, you can send via e-mail, embed it on your website or blog, or stream it over the web in Flash.

Anyone who has been involved in web design will know that in the past web designers faced challenges if they chose to develop a site in Flash because the content they included was not indexable by search engines. This was usually the cause of many arguments between designer, web copywriter and SEO consultant and meant that designers often needed to make extra effort to ensure that their content was also presented in another way that search engines could find….building flash and html sites were often the answer – this was a real *mission*….

Google has been developing a new algorithm for indexing textual content in Flash files of all kinds, from Flash menus, buttons and banners, to self-contained Flash websites. Recently, they’ve improved the performance of this Flash indexing algorithm by integrating Adobe’s Flash Player technology. This means that web designers should experience better visibility of Flash content to search engines and therefore improved search results and snippets.

Check out the official note on the Google Blog.

www.checklandkindleysides.com